'Twas gentle Lisa, of no noble line, Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine, Who from his merchant-city hither came To trade in drugs; yet kept an honest fame, And had the virtue not to try and sell Drugs that had none. He loved his riches well, But loved them chiefly for his Lisa's sake, Whom with a father's care he sought to make The bride of some true honorable man,-- Of Perdicone (so the rumor ran), Whose birth was higher than his fortunes were, For still your trader likes a mixture fair Of blood that hurries to some higher strain Than reckoning money's loss and money's gain. And of such mixture good may surely come: Lord's scions so may learn to cast a sum, A trader's grandson bear a well-set head, And have less conscious manners, better bred; Nor, when he tries to be polite, be rude instead. 'Twas Perdicone's friends made overtures To good Bernardo; so one dame assures Her neighbor dame, who notices the youth Fixing his eyes on Lisa; and, in truth, Eyes that could see her on this summer day Might find it hard to turn another way. She had a pensive beauty, yet not sad; Rather like minor cadences that glad The hearts of little birds amid spring boughs: And oft the trumpet or the joust would rouse Pulses that gave her cheek a finer glow, Parting her lips that seemed a mimic bow By chiselling Love for play in coral wrought, Then quickened by him with the passionate thought, The soul that trembled in the lustrous night Of slow long eyes. Her body was so slight, It seemed she could have floated in the sky, And with the angelic choir made symphony; But in her cheek's rich tinge, and in the dark Of darkest hair and eyes, she bore a mark Of kinship to her generous mother-earth, The fervid land that gives the plumy palm-trees birth. She saw not Perdicone; her young mind Dreamed not that any man had ever pined For such a little simple maid as she: She had but dreamed how heavenly it would be To love some hero noble, beauteous, great, Who would live stories worthy to narrate, Like Roland, or the warriors of Troy, The Cid, or Amadis, or that fair boy Who conquered every thing beneath the sun, And somehow, some time, died at Babylon Fighting the Moors. For heroes all were good And fair as that archangel who withstood The Evil One, the author of all wrong,-- That Evil One who made the French so strong; And now the flower of heroes must he be Who drove those tyrants from dear Sicily, So that her maids might walk to vespers tranquilly.